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Nick Saban has certainly made his case, although it's a case that is not yet closed for the year-old, who's getting ready for another season at the helm of the Crimson Tide. Saban has won five national championships in his last 12 seasons as a college coach, with eight straight top finishes. It's one of the greatest runs in college football history, giving Saban an argument in the debate about the sport's best-ever coach. We decided to expand the question. Now, we have taken a more subjective look at the greatest coaches in college football history, publishing our list in four installments of 25 from July All of the parts, plus three related articles, are featured below.
Criteria for the countdown are loose. It is difficult to compare eras and circumstances and longevity vs.
In our case, we're trying to strike a balance when determining which coaches -- throughout the entire history of the sport -- were the most impressive winners and made the biggest impact on college football on the field. Among other things, we've taken into account wins, winning percentage, national championships, AP poll finishes, postseason appearances, influence on strategy, staying power, Sports-Reference's SRS and coaching context comparing accomplishments to other coaches at a school or schools with similar profiles.
Bill Parcells age Paul Brown Died at 83 Jimmy Johnson age Bud Grant age Marv Levy age Mike Ditka age Hank Stram Died at 82 JohnWarner added Bill Cowher age Tom Coughlin age Tony Dungy age Dick Vermeil age JohnWarner added Mike Holmgren age Marty Schottenheimer age Tom Flores age Mike Shanahan age JohnWarner added Andy Reid age After the Sooners finished No.
Switzer began his head coaching career by going and finishing No.
Switzer's teams finished no worse than seventh in the AP poll in each of his first seven seasons, and after a few years of mixed results, the Sooners vaulted back to the top in the mids behind Brian Bosworth, beating Penn State in the Orange Bowl for Switzer's third and final national title.
Switzer coached nine teams that finished in the top three, 12 Big 8 champions, six Orange Bowl winners and Heisman winner Billy Sims. Some may believe that this is too low for the winningest Division I coach of all time, the man who built Penn State football into a national power and won games and two national championships, spending 16 years as an assistant to Rip Engle and 46 more as head coach. Some may believe that this is too high for Paterno, the man who experienced a monumental fall from grace at the end of his life after longtime defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky was convicted of child sex abuse and Paterno was fired and faced with intense criticism and accusations of, at worst, covering up or ignoring allegations about Sandusky, and, at best, not being more vigilant.
The purpose of this series is to evaluate on-field accomplishments of college football coaches throughout the sport's history, and these are the facts of Paterno's football career: In the '82 season, Penn State out-dueled Georgia in a classic Sugar Bowl; four years later, in one of the biggest college football games ever, Penn State intercepted Heisman winner Vinny Testaverde five times to beat Miami in the Fiesta Bowl and win a second title in five seasons.
He coached a Heisman winner, John Cappelletti, in , and he won a Big Ten title as recently as , when he turned 82 years old. There's little doubt about what Paterno accomplished on the field. But in the best of times and, at the end, the worst of times, Paterno was the face of Penn State for nearly half a century, and debates about his legacy aren't going to end anytime soon. It's amazing to think what Wilkinson's record might look like if he hadn't stepped down from coaching at age Oklahoma had previously experienced mixed results in its football history, but Wilkinson quickly made the Sooners into a national power, a status sustained today.
Wilkinson's first three teams went with three Sugar Bowl bids, with the team's first national championship in In , the Sooners were denied the national title despite a record, and they responded by going the next two seasons to claim back-to-back national titles. In total, Oklahoma set an unbreakable record by winning 47 straight games from , the streak not ending until a loss to Notre Dame on Nov.
Ultimately, Wilkinson won After experiencing modest success in six seasons at West Virginia, Bowden moved to Florida State to take on the challenge of a program that lacked a national profile, having never finished a season ranked. What followed was one of the most amazing runs in football history. With a program that went in , Bowden went in his second year in , and he lost a pair of Orange Bowls in The true rise started in , when Bowden embarked on a streak of 14 straight AP top-five seasons in which the Seminoles had a record of Only twice in that span did the Seminoles claim national championships and '99 , due in part to a few excruciating losses to rivals Florida and Miami, but the Noles finished or better in each of those years, churning out dominant team after dominant team featuring numerous stars, including Heisman winners Charlie Ward and Chris Weinke.
Bowden's tenure lost momentum in the final decade after the BCS title loss to Oklahoma, but he coached until he was 80 years old, winning 76 percent of his games at Florida State and building the program into a premier contender nationally, with one of the best sustained peaks that college football has ever seen. Regardless of how things ended, Hayes may forever be the face of Ohio State football, winning five national championships and 13 Big Ten titles in his 28 years in Columbus.
In , Hayes went , won the Rose Bowl and won the national title. In , Ohio State went and won the national title. And in , it claims a three-way share of the title despite losing the Rose Bowl to Stanford.
Alas, Hayes settled for those five national championships, a career record against Michigan and 10 AP top-five teams, along with coaching Archie Griffin, the only two-time winner of the Heisman. Chicago , Pacific , Springfield Record: When Stagg began playing at Yale, football was not yet football. It was , and the game was still evolving from its rugby-like origins.
He didn't stop coaching until , when he helped out local Stockton College by coaching kickers. Born one year before the Gettysburg Address and seven years before the first-ever college football game between Rutgers and Princeton, Stagg lived to age , long enough to see Bear Bryant's first two national championship teams at Alabama. In his 41 years at Chicago, Stagg stands as one of the most influential and innovative people in football history. A presence close to the beginning of the sport, he influenced just about everybody, from Knute Rockne on down. Twelve more of his teams had just one loss.
In , after that unbeaten season, the forward pass was legalized, and, Allison Danzig writes in "The History of American Football" that "Stagg had sixty-four pass plays" in that first year. From the onside kick to shifts to how the quarterback took snaps to laterals to the double pass to the Statue of Liberty and beyond, Stagg has claims to an enormous number of firsts. When he was forced to step down as coach at Chicago at age 70, he couldn't resist the pull of football. In 25 years as head coach, Tom Osborne never had a team finish unranked or lose more than three games.
Think about the disadvantages Nebraska football faces. Think about the frustrating reality that has set in over the last two decades since Osborne retired. From , Nebraska produced one ranked football team.
And yet here is what Osborne did upon getting promoted from offensive coordinator to head coach to replace Bob Devaney, who jumpstarted the Cornhuskers and won two national titles in Osborne coached 25 years and, behind a devastating option attack, never once led a team that finished unranked, ending with a winning percentage of. Eighteen of his team 25 teams were ranked in the top Twelve won Big 8 titles. Twenty-one played in the Orange, Sugar or Cotton Bowl. And, ultimately, three won national championships. Nebraska famously just missed a title in , when -- as the wire-to-wire unbeaten No.
Osborne wouldn't win one until , amid another absurd run of success for Nebraska in which he'd win three in four years. In '94, Nebraska was voted No. The next year, Nebraska left no doubt, with a mesmerizing, unstoppable offense behind quarterback Tommy Frazier that went and beat Florida in the Fiesta Bowl to stake its claim as one of the greatest teams in history. And in '97, Nebraska went undefeated again, splitting the title with Michigan.
Osborne ended his career on the highest of high notes, having won 60 of his final 63 games. From the beginning of intercollegiate football in through , at least a share of every declared national championship went to an Ivy League team: Princeton, Yale, Harvard or Penn. Beginning in , Yost took college football by storm, ending the East Coast's reign and expanding national respect to the Midwest by dominating the competition with a relentless, unstoppable attack.
A century before coaches like Chip Kelly and Gus Malzahn popularized modern up-tempo offenses, Hurry Up Yost's Wolverines were busy earning their Point-a-Minute reputation by dominating overmatched opponents with blazing speed and ruthless efficiency. Yost began his Michigan tenure by out-scoring opponents in an season, earning the national title and beating Stanford in the first-ever Rose Bowl.
In his second year, Michigan out-scored opponents in an national title season. In , Michigan out-scored opponents in an national title season, merely tying Minnesota In , Michigan out-scored opponents , in a national title season. In , Michigan out-scored its first 12 opponents … but then finally lost , in one of the biggest football games ever, to Amos Alonzo Stagg and Chicago. The final score tally in five years? Michigan 2,, Opponents Yes, it was a much different time for football. Michigan's schedule was extraordinarily imbalanced, as the game of football was still spreading across the country.
And while Michigan continued to be dominant, the loss to Chicago that ended the Point-a-Minute era was also the Wolverines' last game before the forward pass was legalized. But Yost went on to claim national titles in and ' He had only one losing record at Michigan, winning According to "The History of American Football," when Yost died in , Grantland Rice wrote, "Yost was not only one of the greatest coaches football has ever seen, but one of the most distinctive characters sport has ever known.
He was a human volcano with a tidal wave touch. Hurry Up had a combination of ability and personality that has yet to be surpassed in any field. Notre Dame , , Boston College Record: During World War II, college football slowed to a crawl at many schools around the country. At Notre Dame, the opposite was true.
Leahy, an assistant for great Fordham teams of the s including Vince Lombardi and the Seven Blocks of Granite , went in two seasons at Boston College claiming a national title in , then coached eight top-three teams in 11 seasons in South Bend. Leahy won AP national titles in , '46, '47 and '49, with a No.
He finished undefeated in seven of his 13 years as head coach, losing more than two games only once. Upon returning from military service in , Leahy didn't lose a game until Oct. He was prevented from a prolonged career, stepping down after the season for health reasons at age But Leahy assembled a sterling resume, accomplishing more than nearly any coach ever in just 13 seasons. The only coach with a better winning percentage?